The present invention relates to components for conveyor diverter systems having friction-enhancing surfaces for improving the diverting of articles being diverted by the diverter system. The term "diverter system" as used heroin is a subsystem of a conveyor system utilizing one or more diverter components for laterally displacing articles being conveyored in order to transfer articles to branch lines or otherwise altering the course of articles.
A variety of diverter systems are known in the art. However, all suffer from various problems. Many diverter components employed in such systems utilize a friction outer surface for contacting the articles being diverted. Such friction surface enables the diverting of moving articles by diverter components. Currently known diverter components have outer surfaces that achieve only moderate levels of friction between the diverter component and the article being diverted. These known diverter components are only able to achieve limited diverting action because slippage often occurs between the diverter component and article. Thus, them is a need for a diverter component that has a relatively high friction outer surface such that slippage between the diverter component and article is eliminated or significantly reduced.
Another problem associated with currently known diverter systems is that the friction surfaces of the diverter components collect wax and other contaminants, typically from the articles, e.g. cardboard cartons, being diverted or conveyored. Contaminant build-up on friction surfaces of diverter components decreases the effective level of friction achieved between diverter component and article being diverted and so further increases the tendency for slippage to occur. In addition, contaminant build-up requires frequent maintenance to clean the friction surfaces and remove the wax or other contaminants that have accumulated on those surfaces. Therefore, there is a need for a diverter component that does not accumulate such build-up or else accumulates such build-up at a significantly lower rate than currently known diverter components, and thus does not require the frequent maintenance involved in cleaning the outer periphery of the diverter component.
It is usually desirable to use relatively high conveying speeds for transferring conveyored articles from one location to another. Such high speeds result in greater kinetic energy of the moving articles. Since the kinetic energy of moving articles increases with the square of the velocity, relatively minor increases in conveyor speeds can result in significant increases in the kinetic energy of the moving articles. The high speeds make it more difficult to effectively divert and change course of the moving articles. Thus, there is a need for a diverter component capable of effectively diverting articles moving at relatively high speeds.
Currently known diverter systems suffer from a relatively high frequency or occurrence of nondiverted articles. Nondiverted articles must be collected and re-introduced onto the sortation conveyor. In applications involving counting, monitoring or other data collection associated with conveyored articles, nondiverted articles must also be re-entered into the system and any errors associated with the nondiversion accounted for. Re-entering nondiverted articles in such systems is tedious and time-consuming. Thus, there is a need for an apparatus and related method of use for eliminating or significantly reducing the frequency or occurrence of nondiverted articles when utilizing diverter systems.